Hopes were high for warmer relations between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches as President Vladimir Putin flew Monday to Rome for his first audience with Pope Francis. Topping the agenda is likely help for Christians in the Middle East.

Putin, an Orthodox Christian, has repeatedly said that he is a
man of faith and his administration has consistently sought
closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

His policies “have brought religion to the forefront and
triggered positive change in ecumenical relations," said
Natalya Pecherskaya, rector of the St. Petersburg School of
Religion and Philosophy.

But state interests will come first on the visit, officials said.

"Putin will be meeting Pope Francis as the president of
Russia, and then only secondly as a Russian Orthodox
[Christian]," said Father Kirill Gorbunov, a spokesman for
the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow.

As well as his visit with the Holy Father in the Vatican, Putin
will meet with Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and Romano
Prodi, the country’s former premier and a special UN
representative, in Rome. On Tuesday, Putin will travel to Trieste
for talks with the Italian government.

The Kremlin announced ahead of the visit that Putin and Pope
Francis would focus on the state of international institutions
and their ability to respond to crises, as well as the protection
of Christian minorities in the Maghreb and the Middle East.

It’s not the first time Pope Francis has addressed topical
political issues: before the Group of 20 Summit in early
September, the pontiff implored Putin to seek a peaceful
resolution to the Syrian crisis, along with other world leaders.

"To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a
heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the
conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a
military solution [in Syria]," Pope Francis wrote in his
letter to Putin. "Rather, let there be a renewed commitment to
seek, with courage and determination, a peaceful solution through
dialogue and negotiation of the parties, unanimously supported by
the international community."

Yury Ushakov, senior foreign policy aide to Putin, said the
Pope’s letter had “served as a constructive background for the
discussion of the Syrian crisis during the [G20] summit.
Afterward, an interesting and rather positive development
happened, taking into account the initiatives suggested by our
president.”

In recent months, violent attacks on Christians in Syria, Libya
and other hotspots in the Middle East have featured increasingly
in media reports.

Christians, who comprise about 10 per cent of Syria's population,
are viewed as supporters of President Bashar Assad, fearing the
Islamist ideology of some rebels.

“I believe it is all systematic and planned,” Sami Housni,
a Christian priest in Damascus, told RT. “Forcing Christians
to leave… In Iraq, for instance, less than 200,000 Christians
remain. We do have concerns, and we do hope to stay in our land,
Syria, which is the cradle of Christianity. We also hope that the
Pope and the heads of Christian denominations will call for the
renunciation of violence and the adoption of dialogue.”

During Putin’s Vatican meeting there are no plans to pass along
any official communication from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the
Russian Orthodox Church, to the pontiff, Ushakov said.

For nearly a thousand years, tensions have dominated relations
between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, which were
split in the Great Schism of 1054.

Last week, ahead of Putin’s trip to the Vatican, Patriarch Kirill
met with a senior Catholic archbishop in Moscow.
"We live in an epoch when many of our historic differences
should no longer play the negative role they have played in
relations between our churches," Kirill told journalists, as
quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.

During his years in power, Putin has visited the Vatican three
times, meeting with John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Then-President
Dmitry Medvedev also paid a visit to Pope Benedict XVI.

Putin’s last visit to the Vatican took place in 2010, when he was
Russia’s prime minister.

These visits have formed the backdrop for strengthening ties
between Russia and the Vatican – which is, after all, a sovereign
state. In 2011, Russia and the Vatican signed a cooperation
agreement in the field of child health care, and last month the
countries agreed to increase cooperation between their respective
academic institutions and museums.

The reason Russian Orthodox Patriarchs and Catholic Popes have
not met in recent decades has both ancient and modern roots.
There has been a centuries-old dispute between the Russian
Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches, and the Russian Orthodox
Church says the Catholics wrongfully seized its property in the
1980s and 1990s.

Under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, Eastern Catholic churches were
handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church. After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the Catholics took back more than 500 churches,
mostly in western Ukraine.